News and Press Releases of DIW Berlin

SOEP Annual Report 2024: people, projects, and publications

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:47:00 +0200

In 2024, SOEP celebrated its 40th birthday with numerous high-profile guests, colleagues, and supporters. But that's not all: with 49 ongoing third-party funded projects, SOEP received a total of 11 million euros in outside funding. The important research focus “Social inequalities and distribution” ...

Researcher (f/m/x)

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 12:00:00 +0200

The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a research-driven infrastructure based at DIW Berlin, is one of the largest and longest running multidisciplinary panel studies worldwide, and currently surveys around 30,000 people in nearly 15,000 households. SOEP aims to capture social change and thus handles a constant stream of new and diverse topics and tasks. Its data collection and generation adhere to the concept of the survey or data life cycle.
Within the SOEP, the ERC-funded project WEALTHTRAJECT, led by Philipp Lersch, will comprehensively and systematically investigate diversity in long-term wealth accumulation trajectories within and between social groups. The project breaks new ground by combining longitudinal data from surveys and registers with new biographical data on wealth, making it possible for the first time to map wealth trajectories over more extendedperiods of people’s lives. One objective of the project is to establish the intergenerational relationships between family background and wealth accumulation trajectories.
Starting from December 1, 2025, DIW Berlin is looking for a

Researcher (f/m/x)
(Full-time)

Martin Kittel has successfully defended his dissertation

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 10:16:00 +0200

Martin Kittel, Research Associate in the Energy, Transportation, Environment Department, successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Five Essays in Energy System Analysis - Exploring the Dunkelflaute and Unintended Storage Cycling” on January 27, 2025. The scientific reviewers were Tom Brown, ...

Register now for the online workshop series SOEPcampus: Learn to use the SOEP over lunch

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 17:50:00 +0200

In June 2025 our online over lunch seminar series returns with new workshop management. The workshop provides a comprehensive, practical introduction to the data of the Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) on three Wednesdays during lunchtime. Participants will learn about the study's content, data structure ...

The #ManyDaughters Study is Officially Kicking Off!

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 10:32:00 +0200

We are happy to announce the launch of the #ManyDaughters Study, an international research initiative exploring how having daughters influences behavior, preferences, and attitudes. Researchers from all fields of social sciences are invited to participate in this collaborative project, which will ...

Joint Economic Forecast Spring 2025: Geopolitical turn intensifies crisis – structural reforms even more urgent

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 11:29:00 +0200

The German economy will continue to tread water in 2025. In their spring report, the leading economic research institutes forecast an increase in gross domestic product of just 0.1 per cent for the current year. For 2026, the institutes expect gross domestic product to increase by 1.3 per cent. In ...

Trump’s tariffs: What escalating trade tensions with the US imply for EU exporters and supply chains

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:45:00 +0200

Abstract:

US trade policy has taken a sharp turn away from multilateralism, with sweeping new tariffs posing a serious threat to global supply chains. As the US remains the EU’s largest export market for goods, these measures carry significant repercussions for the bloc. Exports to the US are heavily reliant on a small number of companies and high-value business relationships—making the EU particularly vulnerable to targeted trade measures. In Germany, the top ten business relationships alone account for a fifth of maritime exports to the US. Intra-company trade also plays a crucial role: One quarter of automotive exports from Germany to the US is between business entities with clear common ownership. Simulations further suggest that a transatlantic tariff conflict would halve EU exports to the US and trigger widespread production losses, with Germany’s GDP contracting by approximately 0.33% in the long term. To limit these economic damages and build long-term resilience, the EU should accelerate its export diversification by deepening trade ties with Free Trade Agreement partners and enhancing integration within the single market.

Ukrainian refugees in Germany: participation is growing, but many hurdles remain

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0200

How are the many Ukrainians who have come to Germany since the start of the Russian war of aggression on February 24, 2022, faring? An answer comes from the “Longitudinal Study on Refugees from Ukraine in Germany (SUARE),” which has published a research report on the topic on 3 March, 2025. The ...

Marcel Fratzscher: „The next federal government needs courage and honesty“

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:47:00 +0200

Following yesterday's Bundestag elections, DIW President Marcel Fratzscher commented on the results and the challenges facing the new German government:

Germany‘s federal election marks a turning point. The Social Democrats are the biggest loser, and even though the Conservatives have emerged as the election winner, they have performed remarkably poorly. As a result, their coalition could struggle to push through a bold and urgently needed reform agenda. Economic decline, social polarization, and the continued rise of the rightwing extremist AfD would be the inevitable outcome.

The potential coalition partners should now put their feuds aside and get to work on the coalition agreement. In a world of escalating crises, Germany must finally break free from its political and economic paralysis.

A new federal government should set three major priorities. First, it must regain the lost trust and offer citizens and businesses a clear perspective for the future. The new government needs courage and honesty because the next four years will be tough for Germany and the most difficult of the last 75 years.

Above all, businesses in the industrial sector, but also citizens, will have to prepare for sacrifice and hardship. The transformation of the economy and society means change, and inevitably there will be losers. Secondly, the new government should prioritize an investment offensive, focusing both on infrastructure, innovation, and education, as well as defense. It should avoid dogmatic disputes and finance investments pragmatically through special assets, as a meaningful reform of the debt brake is likely impossible.

As a third priority, the new government must radically change its course on Europe. Germany will only be able to safeguard its own interests as part of a strong and united Europe. Germany must not continue to weaken Europe, as some parties called for during the election campaign. Instead, we need a primarily common European approach on defense, the internal market, innovation, and competitiveness.

Virginia Sondergeld has successfully defended her dissertation

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 09:39:00 +0200

Virginia Sondergeld, former Research Associate in the Public Economics department and the Research Group Gender Economics, successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Women in management: Essays in Gender and Labor Economics” on January 31, 2025. The scientific reviewers were Peter Haan and ...

The Wave 1 Scientific Use File of the German Social Cohesion Panel (SCP) is now available!

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 17:05:00 +0200

The Wave 1 Scientific Use File of the German Social Cohesion Panel (SCP) is now available!

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 14:24:00 +0200

The SCP is a longitudinal study that captures multiple aspects of social cohesion in Germany. It is based on a representative population sample drawn from the German population registers and was carried out for the first time in 2021. The annual survey is directed not only at the selected individuals but also at all other adult household members. The SCP is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), led in cooperation by the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), and implemented by the survey institute infas.

The SCP 2021/22 W1:

The dataset "German Social Cohesion Panel 2021/22 – Wave 1" (DOI: 10.60532/scp.2021_22.w1.v1) includes survey data and generated indicators of the first and second part of the first panel wave. It contains responses from 13,053 household anchor persons drawn from population registers and from 3,974 adult household members who were named by the anchor persons and subsequently interviewed.

Data Access:

The SCP can be ordered at the RISC Research Data Centre (RDC-RISC) by all post-doctoral researchers affiliated with a scientific institution. For that purpose, please set up a data user account at https://fgz-risc-data.de/en/registration if not yet done. You can use this account in the future to order all Scientific Use Files available at the RDC-RISC.

Account holders (primary users) may share the data with researchers under their supervision (secondary users). Secondary users must be listed in the primary user's data user account and must sign a privacy policy, which must be archived by the primary user.

We would like to point out that the data are provided for scientific use only.

Any Questions concerning our PhD Program?

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 10:56:00 +0200

Join our Open Info Hour! Are you considering applying to the DIW Graduate Center's structured PhD program? This is your chance to learn more about our program, ask questions, and connect directly with our team. Discover how you can benefit from excellent academic training, a vibrant research ...

“Social Report 2024” published: What are living conditions like in Germany?

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 10:00:00 +0200

“Social Report 2024” published: What are living conditions like in Germany? Publications use Socio-Economic Panel data The “Sozialbericht 2024,” produced in collaboration with the Socio-Economic Panel, is being presented today. It is published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the ...

SOEP-Core Data 1984-2022 (v39) available now

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:07:00 +0200

All registered data users can order the latest data immediately via our online order form.In German: http://www.diw.de/SOEPbestellungIn English: http://www.diw.de/SOEPorder Important news for v39: New samples: With the refreshment sample R and the migration sample M8b, two new samples were added ...

SOEP-Core Data 1984-2022 (v39) available now

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 13:01:00 +0200

Applications are now open for the PhD Program intake of 2025

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:15:00 +0200

The application portal for the doctoral program of the DIW Graduate Center is now open! Graduates can apply until January 15, 2025 for the 2025 cohort (start: October 2025). The program offers structured doctoral training with a full scholarship in the first year and employment in a department in ...

Johannes Seebauer has successfully defended his dissertation

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:37:00 +0200

We congratulate Johannes Seebauer on successfully defending his dissertation on November 19, 2024.The title of the thesis was ‘Shocks and the Labor Market: Five Empirical Essays in Economics’ and he was supervised by Carsten Schröder and Alexander Kritikos. We wish him much success and all the best ...

Jonas Hannane has successfully defended his dissertation

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:37:00 +0200

We c

Mats Kröger has successfully defended his dissertation

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:31:00 +0200

We congratulate Mats Kröger on successfully defending his dissertation on 26 September 2024.The title of the thesis was ‘Does a fair transition reduce efficiency? Essays on the distributional effects of energy and climate policy’ and he was supervised by Karsten Neuhoff and Chloé Le-Coq. We wish ...